Kanchomé and Parco Folgore
Kanchomé (キャンチョメ Kyanchome, spelled as Kanchome in the Japanese version) and Parco Folgore (パルコ・フォルゴレ Paruko Forugore) are two fictional characters and protagonists of the manga and anime series Zatch Bell!. In the manga their book was burned by Clear Note and Vino placing them 7th out of the one hundred Mamodo in the tournament. Kanchomé specializes in Illusion Magic and Transformation Magic. Kanchomé Kanchomé is a mamodo about Zatch's age who wears a blanket sleeper, has an unusual cone-shaped hairstyle, has bug eyes, and sports a duck bill. His sleeper contains an endless pocket filled with candy. His personality tends toward childish and abrasive, often crying and whining like a baby to get whatever he wants; however, he has also shown great determination to protect his friends. Kanchome is also easily scared, oftenly being easily frightened when fighting other mamodo, one of his fears is Brago. His weakness is candy; despite having a pocket full of it, he cannot resist trying to grab candy that is laying around. He once got on a truck containing candy and a result ended up in Spain as part of a traveling circus; after being rescued by Folgore, he once again is fooled by a ship with candy heading to Antarctica and spends a considerable amount of time there before being found by Doctor Riddles. Despite this he is unusually perceptive at times. The best example is when he is the first one to realize that Faudo tower looks like a gigantic prison to hold in a giant and he knew about Zeno. Kanchomé is voiced by Masami Kikuchi in the original version. In the English version, he is initially voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, but is replaced by Jeff Nimoy during the Ancient Mamodo Arc. In the Stonestream Recording Dub he is voiced by Anthony Bejarano. Kanchomé ranked 5th in the first Konjiki no Gash Bell popularity contest and 8th in the second. Parco Folgore Parco Folgore is a superstar and film hero from Milan, Italy. He normally spends his time touring the world, giving concerts, and meeting his fans - especially the ladies, who love him. However, he and Kanchomé have come to Japan for a special purpose - to defeat Zatch Bell and Kiyo Takamine. They are defeated rather easily and leave, but Zatch and Kiyo meet them again in England, where Kiyo discovers Folgore singing for a group of sick children in the hospital. They become friends after that, although Kiyo still dislikes Folgore's womanizing ways. A running gag with Folgore is that in almost every battle he's fought in he's generally the one who gets hit by the brunt of the enemy's spells while Kanchomé remains unscathed until later battles. Folgore has two hit songs, "Chichi wo Moge" (translates to "Groping Breasts"; changed to "Hey Hey Let's Dance All Day" in English versions), and "Muteki Folgore" ("Invincible Folgore" in English), the latter of which has the unusual ability to revive him if it's sung by Kanchomé. He also frequently plays an "invincible super spy", 00F, in his films; this character has his own theme song as well, "00F's Theme". Recently, more about Folgore's background has been revealed. In his youth, he desired to be a "lion", a powerful and strong person in body and spirit. However, he soon lost track of who he was and fought against anyone in his way, whether good or bad. However, as time went on, everyone avoided him such as exiting restaurants as he entered them or people he helped fleeing from him. Eventually, his parents packed his bags and forced him to leave at gunpoint out of fear. Just after he left his hometown, he saw an image on television of a bird standing on top of the tooth of a hippopotamus. Seeing the peaceful, yet powerful creature coexisting with the bird became a new inspiration for Folgore, making him choose the path that would lead to his stardom. However, the scars of his past were not completely removed as even currently his parents want nothing to do with him. He sucessfully stopped Kanchome from going down a similar path. He was happy to the point of tears when he recieved a letter from Kanchome after the battle. Parco Folgore is voiced by Hiroki Takahashi in the original version and by Dave Wittenberg in the English version. In the Stonestream Recording Dub he will be voiced by David Stenstrom. Folgore ranked 8th in the first popularity contest and 12th in the second. Raiku said that Folgore is his favorite character. Kanchomé and Folgore as a team Kanchomé and Folgore rarely actually fight; they focus on deception and confusion with the help of Kanchomé's shape shifting abilities. They're amusingly inept at holding their own. However, there is more to this duo than comic relief. Folgore's endurance and speed seem to borderline on superhuman, shown how most of the fights he and Kanchomé been in have been mostly running away and him getting severely hurt, and Folgore even has a serious side to him; when Kanchomé is getting hurt he always tries to protect Kanchomé even to the extent that he risks his life. When the duo fight alongside other demon teams such as Zatch Bell and Kiyo Takamine, Kanchomé's abilities are valuable. He often morphs into his teammates or even his opponents in order to misdirect their attacks and create openings, and when all else fails Kanchomé can shapeshift into large objects for his teammates to hide behind. His illusion spell is also used to effectively buy time for others. However, Kanchomé and Folgore have won fights on their own, often thanks to Kanchomé's shrinking spell which lets him get close enough to burn spellbooks with a match. Kanchomé often feels weak when fighting alongside his demon friends, especially during the Ancient Mamodo Arc when he and Kido were fighting Belgim EO. Kanchomé blames himself for Kido's book being burned by Belgim EO as result of his weak powers. Kanchomé and Folgore lasted long enough to make it into the 'King Festival', the battle between the remaining ten mamodo to determine the new king. After a surprising visit from Dufort, Kanchomé and Folgore received special training to help Kanchomé awaken his hidden power. The results of this training is later shown when Kanchomé beats Zatch in a practice match (a very 'one-sided' match). Later, Kanchomé and Folgore team up to battle against Mir and Gomu after the two track down and attack the demon Purio and bookkeeper Lupa, who were in Milan to recruit Folgore to help them with a show to raise money for a hiding shelter (suggesting they changed their ways after the Faudo arc.) Kanchomé demonstrates not only a newfound confidence, but a startling increase in power as he easily dominates his seemingly stronger opponent. However, there is a massive drawback to Kanchomé's newfound power: in gaining what he wanted, he becomes something horrible and monstrous in the process, losing all sight of the battle and descending into madness until Folgore is forced to stand up to him to turn him back to normal. However, after calming down Gomu by creating a more pleasant "Shin Poruku" experience, they are discovered by the baby bookkeeper Vino, who recites a spell that allows the evil Clear Note to sent two blasts to destroy everyone on the battlefield. With little time to react, Folgore grabs Lupa's book and throws it and his own into the sky, blocking the attack and sending both Purio and Kanchomé back to the mamodo world. Gomu regretted his violent actions towards Purio and Lupa and mourned Kanchomé's being sent back. However, because of Gomu's friendliness towards Kanchomé and Purio, Mir decided to let Zatch burn Gomu's book after a failed attempt at taking out Clear, thus reducing the number of mamodo to five. Spells Spellbooks they burned * Bago, at a shoreside cave in Europe (episode 41, by throwing his book into a fire he himself started) * Ganz, in the Devolo Ruins (episode 61) * Victoream, in the Devolo Ruins (episode 63) * Mukaron, in the Devolo Ruins (episode 69) Conception and development Raiku said that Folgore had no "actual model" and that he used the "Invincible Italian Man" as the basic concept. Chichi Wo Moge/Hey, Hey, Let's Dance All Day Although Parco Folgore is known for several of his songs, his most infamous is his hit record Chichi wo Moge, which literally means in English Groping Breasts. The song is accompanied by a frantic dance sequence which includes a motion of the hands similar to the subject of the song. Both the song and dance were created by Makoto Raiku and depicted in the third volume of the original Konjiki no Gash Bell! manga. The song and dance was also depicted several times in the anime rendition of the series, and was even released as a single in Japan. When Viz Media imported the series from Japan to the United States and Canada, the company altered the song to fit American standards of children's television. The song was transformed into Hey, Hey, Let's Dance All Day, a much more innocent song about Folgore's love of dancing. While the lyrics were changed, Viz kept both the original music and the dance in the anime and manga renditions. In the Viz manga release of Zatch Bell, when Folgore performed the entire song for the Ancient Mamodo Belgim E.O., the word "grope" was replaced with "boogie", but the rest of the original lyrics were kept. However, in the Youtube Dub the song is renamed "Hey Hey Let's Grope all day" it is the translation of the song "Chichi wo moge" but with the similar singing style of "Hey Hey let's Dance all day" The words "grope" and "boogie" have been replaced by "boobies" it is also the first complete english dubbed and complete Gash Bell character song, this song is currently on youtube and was written and performed by David Stenstrom. Kanchomé's transformations * Kiyo (with a strange longer nose) (episode 11) * Cannon (without ammo) (episode 11) * Car (episode 19) * Bull-demon (episode 41) * Fredo (with an enormous forehead) (episode 41) * Wheel (episode 59) * Grappling hook (episode 59) * Dead-end wall (episode 59) * Wall (episode 60, 69, 128) * Floor (episode 61, 77, 80) * Victoreem's body (episode 63) * Bao Zakeruga (episode 63) * Victoreem's book (episode 63) * Hang-glider (episode 70, video game) * Kido (episode 73, 92) * Broken pillar (episode 78-83) * Zatch (episode 84) * Catapult truck (episode 86) * Heavyweight (episode 100) * Nicholas (episode 100) * Parachute (episode 138) * Planet Earth (chapter 319) * Rocket (movie 1) * Giant fan (movie 2, video game) * Various electric fans (movie 2) * Touge (video game) Trivia * In the final chapter of the manga (chapter 323), Kanchomé's father was the only new parent revealed. His name was later revealed to be Tiger (タイガー, Taigā).http://raikumakoto.com/archives/5649668.html Makoto Raiku's blog about Kanchomé including Kanchomé's father's name. References Category:Characters Category:Good Characters Category:Mamodo Category:Male Characters Category:Current Battle Mamodo Category:Humanoid Mamodo